Less than a year after Japan legalized bitcoin as legal tender, part of the country’s effort pioneering effort to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework for incorporating - and regulating - digital currencies, one Japanese company is offering employees the option to be paid in bitcoin.
Shares of Alibaba fell on Thursday morning, despite an exciting news story involving the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut, which is rushing to shake up the way people buy cars in China. Alibaba seems to be taking a page from Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods, with the continued push into physical retail. The plan outlined by Alibaba, is to open two giant car vending machines in early 2018, shaped like a futuristic tubular building with a giant cat’s head on top.
Authored by Daniel Lacalle via The Mises Institute,
Many of our readers might remember the late 80s. There were hundreds of movies, songs and books about the inevitable Japanese economic invasion.
The ones of you that did not live that period can see that it did not happen.
Why? Because the Japanese growth miracle was built on a massive debt bubble and, once it burst, the country fell into stagnation for the better part of two decades. It still has not recovered.
"Economic recovery" in America no longer means what it used to mean. Historically "economic recovery" was largely characterized by job and wage growth, distributed across the income spectrum, and a rebound in GDP growth to north of ~3%-5%. These days, the notion of "economic recovery" has been hijacked by the Fed and bastardized in such a way that they celebrate "asset bubbles" rather than real growth in economic output.
Presented as 'exhibit A', here is the Fed's modern-day definition of "economic recovery" (chart per Bloomberg):